Clinton Urges Assistance For East Europe Calls For Private Sector To Invest Time, Money In Former Soviet Bloc

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe after World War II, President Clinton said on Wednesday that the West “must complete the noble journey” and bring the former communist nations of Eastern Europe into a prosperous, united Europe.

The president did not propose a new American aid program, noting that private business and international financial institutions had invested almost $100 billion in the former Eastern bloc countries since the fall of communism. Instead, Clinton said, Western nations should encourage more private investment, help these nations establish the rule of law and teach entrepreneurial skills.

“Our generation, like the one before us, must choose,” Clinton said. “Without the threat of the Cold War, without the pain of economic ruin, without the fresh memory of World War II’s slaughter, it is tempting to pursue our private agendas - to simply sit back and let history unfold. We must resist the temptation.”

Clinton praised the European Union’s plans to open its doors to new member states, a move the formerly communist nations complain is proceeding far too slowly.

Prime Minister Wim Kok of the Netherlands, speaking before Clinton, said that assistance to the new economies in Central Europe “is needed on a massive scale.” He called for a public-private initiative to link East and West Europe and estimated that as much as $100 billion of investment is needed.

Clinton was escorted by Queen Beatrix into the 13th-century Ridderzaal, or Hall of Knights, where heads of state or government from across Europe gathered to mark the postwar economic assistance formally known as the European Recovery Program.

Over four years, the United States provided nearly $13 billion - the equivalent of $88 billion in today’s dollars - to help Western Europe rebuild.

It was 50 years ago next week - on June 5, 1947 - that Secretary of State George Marshall proposed an economic recovery plan for Western Europe - the vanquished and the victors alike - in a Harvard University commencement address.

With Europe having just survived the harshest winter on record and with the fear of communist expansion as a spur, Marshall said the United States was prepared “to assist in the return to normal economic health to the world without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.”

For the Dutch, Marshall Plan money amounted to $109 a year in assistance for every man, woman, and child.